The Red Rose In A Sea Of Daisies

I stand on the sidewalk beside a black and white bus stop.

Entering the bus, I’m judged by a number of black and white eyes of all shapes and sizes which are each accompanied with a grey frown.

I exit the vehicle and walk out into the broad city, every building I pass either a deep charcoal or a soft fossil tone.

I settle myself onto a bench with a shade of cinder to evaluate the town, a woman dressed in tarnished silver scooting away from my side as she continued her socialism through the ironic glass screen of her white phone.

It isn’t often that people sit on this bench. I don’t know why, it’s the same dull shade of solitaire as every other bench across this side of the town centre. I see a lot of familiar faces of those on their way to and from their lonely office jobs. But none I’m smiling at, I’m merely watching and staring, seeing if they’re hiding away any other colours beside the norm of ebony and ash. Perhaps a fluorescent turquoise or maybe an iridescent violet? Nobody stays long enough for me to find out though, but I know the search was proved obsolete many years before I learned that I was different.

My name is Choi Minho, and I am blind of colour. I have the vision of a 1920’s TV screen. I always wonder what the colours look like. Hazel? Sapphire? Merigold? Even then, nobody can show me the colours, I can only study names. If you were to place something green in front of me, I would only know that it wasn’t grey, or black, or white. I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was any kind of green, or red, or even purple.

I feel myself become sick of waiting, the torment of colour being thrown at me, yet it all being invisible to my naked eye. The constant attack on my brain for what colour trousers go best with the shirt I’d chosen; maybe ivory, or soot, or maybe even a daring dove? Yet in reality it’s far from any colour I know. Are the colours I perceive as grey or black or white even the colours I think they are? Maybe the eggshell button up shirt I have is butterscotch, or the graphite pair of sneakers I own are actually merlot?

It’s a wonder why people avoid such an unfortunately incapable individual, never once stopping to think past the visual judgement and to come to a split second decision to avoid what doesn’t fit their agenda of normal. But humanity never changes. Thus the reason why smiles are wasted on the simplest of beings who daren’t give me a second glance.

My ability to stay placed is slipping, my hope dwindling away only to be recharged overnight in order to repeat this process a second time tomorrow. Or is it my third? Fifth? Maybe even my twelve? I’ve lost count, my body working like a robot with a mission, no emotion, no thoughts, just work.

The time is passing fast and it is soon time for me to retreat to my home past the now shadowed buildings and onto the same pebble shaded bus to the confinements of my inky room. My house is drowned in dark smoke walls and oily soft carpet under my feet, the monster under my bed back to steal the joy from my dreams so I’ll succumb to the nightmares nobody has ever seen, haunted by demons that look like black holes, my body perishing in unconsciousness until a pearl light penetrates all evil so I can awake.

And again.

I stand on the sidewalk beside a black and white bus stop.

Entering the bus, I’m judged by a number of black and white eyes of all shapes and sized which are each accompanied with a grey frown.

I exit the vehicle and walk out into the broad city, every building I pass either a deep charcoal or a soft fossil tone.

I settle myself onto a bench with a shade of cinder to evaluate the town. This time, nobody is seated beside me. I didn’t expect anyone to be, as nobody ever does.

Soot passes me.
Cream scolds flint as he cries over losing his cedar balloon.
Grease shouts down his cotton phone as he seems upset over something.

It is soon my time to leave again, every colour surrounding me darkening and threatening me as within my nightmares. I pull my weak body up from its position and stop.

Stop.
W h a t . . ?

My eyes are deceiving me, my eyes thinning as I take a step back to reassure myself that this is simply a hallucination.

Chartreuse.
Crimson.
Fuscia.
Orchid.

I can feel my legs moving, but I can’t think, I can’t breathe. What is this…?

B r o n z e .
L a p i s .
T u s c a n .
M i n t .

“You… you’re wearing… y-you’re wearing…” My being froze as I meet with a pair of eyes, they’re amber. No! Olive! But… aren’t they indigo?

The male looks down on himself and furrows before looking around awkwardly.

“Your eyes, they’re ho-h--” I can’t get the words out, I can feel my cheeks burning. What is wrong with me?

“Brown…? I have brown eyes…” Unable to speak at all anymore, I just stare. Brown. So, this is what brown looks like. I stare deep into the dark orbs, a warm dark, the kind of dark that comforts me, the kind of dark makes me feel safe unlike the dark that suffocates me every night. Hazel and hickory clash together as tinges of light mahogany frame the two umber colours. I feel myself become lost, my hands reaching out to cup the male’s nape.

“Y-Yah!” My actions were quickly denied, the stranger’s hands slapping away my own as I step back in my place and looks away with a bleeding garnet burn across my face from embarrassment. When I averted my eyes, however, I plummet back into the newspaper prison, everyone controlled by the never ending colourless hell slowing digging away at my sanity. Yet, turning my gaze back onto the dumbfounded individual standing but a metre from me, my eyes glisten, my head spins as fireworks burst inside me in the kaleidoscope of colours this boy was modelling. Regardless of my excitement, I bow my head and gulp thickly.

“I-I apologise, I’ve just… never seen… colours before. You… I can see you.” My tongue bats away at my teeth with every word I let out, my body on edge as every nerve inside my tingles. Passion fills my tone even if regret and hatred paints my features.

“You… you’re monochromatic?” To my complete surprise, I notice the curiosity laced through the boy’s question, a shimmer glazing over his brunette eyes. I respond with a gentle nod, feeling as though my deficiency is almost a sin to tell, having never told a soul about what’s wrong with me. The male’s lips twitched before breaking into the brightest smile I’ve ever laid eyes on, my heart skipping a beat at the act towards me.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” He exhaled in a laugh, his colour exploding around his very being as my eyes take in the beauty he was radiating. “I’m Kibum, Kim Kibum by the way, Key for short ~” He said with a playful wink. “It’s nice to meet you Mr…?”

“Minho! M-My name’s Choi Minho.” Bowing my head another time from sheer lack of social experience, I still can’t help but grin.


~


Soon enough, Key takes me back to his house after almost an hour of conversation in the very place we met. It’s almost overwhelming how somebody has so much interest in my medical disorder only moments prior to me fondling their face.

Entering the rather large home, my smile is stripped from me as I’m greeted with the familiar engulfing coal colour surrounding every corner of the home. I’m scared.

“Welcome to my beautiful home!” I show the boy an expression of discomfort at the welcoming sentence. Key shows the same expression he had when I first approached him, that same curiosity behind those feline eyes. “I forgot… you can’t see anything…” Without further question after such a doubt ridden realisation, he takes my hand and drags me towards his room, laughing the entire time.

Slipping awkwardly into the male’s wide room, the ominous grey scale vision was still lurking, Key acting like a light in a dark room as his aura mimics the same comfort his eyes gave me.

“Minho, tell me what you see.” It feels like Key is testing me, making a mockery of my deficiency as any warmth I feel begins to evaporate.

“I see… shadows… it’s dark, light… like a prison.” Key points to his hair, opening his mouth as he approaches the cell’s walls.

“My hair is red. My walls are also red. A little darker than my hair but—“

“So it’s like scarlet?” I feel an unusual confidence sprout in the pit of my being, gulping the rock in my throat as I understand what Key is trying to do. “Scarlet… is a darker version of red… right?”

“Yes… yes it is actually. How do you know that?” I let my lips tug into a smile, feeling praised and appreciated for something instead of being a burden to anybody.

“…put someone in a cage and they’ll have an interest in locks. I suppose you could say my understanding of colours are from words in a book, I just don’t know what they look like.” Key’s teeth peeked from behind his lips as they part momentarily to mirror my smile, finding obvious entertainment in our game. He hums, glancing around the area before dashing over to his bed. Pointing again to his body, this time his jacket, he speaks.

“This, this is a light green colour, almost tan. My bed is a little darker.” Looking down, I think carefully, trying to remember reading about greens as I cock a brow up.

“So, like hazel wood? And your bed is like hazelnut?” Key stops for a moment and purses his lips as he steps away from his bedside.

“…I’m not as fresh on my colours as you obviously are, so I’m going to take your word for it on that one.” His humour brought a calm chuckle out of me as he beckons me closer to him as we both settle beside one another on the edge of the bed. “How about we get you to guess some colours?”

Unable to answer as I’m not sure what it is I want to do, I shrug towards Kibum and he takes it as a yes. He points towards the floor, asking me what I think it is. “And please, keep it simply for little old me ~”

I look between the trusted scarlet wall and the supposed hazelnut bedsheets and judge the floor colour. It looks darker than the bedsheets, but not as dark as the walls.

“Is it maybe... a dark purple?” Key shakes his head and gives a humorous sound stating that I’m incorrect, pointing to his shirt.

“Close, but it’s a dark blue. Like this, only a little darker.”

“Like--” Refraining from going into detail, Kibum lets out a snicker and waves his hand in dismissal.

“Go ahead, impress me with your fancy colour words ~” Fiddling with my hands in my lap, I part my lips.

“Like a…. a denim?” Key’s eyebrows lift and he clasps his hands together.

“Just like denim! Like some of my jeans!”


~


Me and Kibum converse for what feels like an eternity, confiding in him with every one of my problems and misjudgements and taking all the advice he has. It isn’t too long before I have to leave as it’s passed midnight and I feel a part of me begin to suffocate again with the fear of becoming overwhelmed with the darkness. Standing outside Key’s door, I give my goodbye just before Key pushes the door to. In my haze of panic, I thrust my arm out to stop the door, hearing the other gasping and reopening it.

“…what’s wrong?” My mind goes into a state of paranoia, reaching out to firmly grasp Key’s wrist and refusing to let him go.

“I’m scared of the dark, Key... Please don’t leave my side, you’re my only source of freedom from what awaits me out there…” I feel my body become shaken, my eyes wetting and my skin tingling with goose bumps. Key doesn’t give me a second glance before bringing me in for a hug, wrapping his arms around my neck as I embrace his slender body from my side.

“Shh… Shh… I’ll walk home with you… okay?” He steps out of his house, closing his door behind his and slithering his hand around to interlock with my own to build my strength when facing the monsters hidden in the black emptiness that is illuminated by only a collection bright white dots scattered along the sidewalk edge.

Key casually points to multiple objects and describes the colours and how they’d be represented as a person. The various emeralds and pickles and limes of nature are laid back people that never work and always rely on what’s around them for them to thrive. The group of admirals and peacocks and cobalts of the morning, noon and night’s sky which accompany the sunset and sunrise bronzes and rusts and canaries are merely post men that let you know morning is here and that it’s time to wake up and admire life.

He explains everything about the world in a way I could no longer fear it, that I should cherish it and thank my disorder so I wouldn’t have to experience anybody’s awful clothing colour clashes in the near or far future.

“And the black you’re so scared of, he’s nothing but a big softy. He’s the mother that tucks you in at night. He’s the one that accompanies the lonely wolf as he howls. He’s the one that makes any romantic date in the moonlight a passionate night filled with mystery and secrecy. He’s what you want him to be. And those demon and monsters that haunt your dreams? That’s your fear trying to uncover everything black or white or grey in your head that you feel trapped by. You envision colour where you can’t. So envision these people living life to the fullest, envision my colours.”

We’re at my door before know it, and I look around at the surrounding nature in a second light, seeing everybody—or more, every colour, sauntering passed us both, waving to me. My solitude was crumbling.

“Good night Minho, sweet dreams ~” Bowing my head thankfully towards the other, I turn as he makes his leave, unlocking my door before looking back.

He was gone.
Or more so, he was the colours I now saw around me.